We've been offered £20,000 more than we accepted just as we are about to exchange...

The offer has come from a couple who viewed our property about 7 months ago but couldn't sell. They now have an offer on theirs from someone who is in rented accomodation and have put in an offer on ours. In April we accepted an offer on our property, our buyers (and their buyer) have been delaying and delaying the exchange (every day the last few weeks they have been saying we will exchange tomorrow). We are absolutely fed up. I don't know what to do now. The extra £20,000 would be amazing but the thought of going back to the beginning of a chain is awful!What would you do?

Laurie - I'm tempted to do that. This day by day delay is soul destroying and utterly out of our control. I'm also tempted to gazunder them even though it is the lowest of the low because I'm so p*ssed off - don't think I could risk the karma though Mainly the delays have come from their buyer but in my opinion some arse kicking needed to have been done weeks ago.

as someone who is going through the horror of buying a house, I would say to make sure you know the full story of the couple who are delaying. We have been doing just that for the last month, despite our very absolute best efforts to get things sorted out. Our deposit fell through at the last minute and I can't believe the hoops we have had to go through to get finance in place again and we are definately victims of the current financial crisis. Our situation is complicated by my OH being a self employed small business person and that has had a big impact on everything as well as the tightening of all kinds of regulations. So, they may be delaying you but may be trying everytyhing possible to get the situation sorted. After we delayed for 3 weeks the vendors of the house our vendor is buying put the house back on the market and we were devastated. We have now got the finance in place but the money is coming as a loan so it has to go back to the mortgage company again and so could delay again etc...it has been endless. So, I guess I would say try to get a good understanding of what is actually causing the delay and bear in mind that the next deal could just as easily take a very long time. We are living in rented accomodation and it has still taken 3 months to get this far and we will hopefully exchange next week.

yy morningpaper you have hit the nail on the head, that's the massive risk we would be running, that we end up with no buyer. I know the people who have put in the higher offer are serious about our house, they've viewed it twice and kept in touch with the estate agents over the last few months before they sold.

BUT who knows (as Willow points out) what could happen in another chain. If they were cash buyers I would pull out now and go forward with them but they aren't.

Willow - the delays have mainly been queries between the solicitors, each answer causing another delay but all this should have been dealt with MONTHS ago. We have literally been ready (having answered any queries within 24 hours) for months.

I wouldn't pull out without giving them an ultimatum. Angry as I am, I wouldn't do that.

tricky one then isn't it? don't get me started on solicitors, our, who WE are paying, has been utterly rubbish. Can you talk to them directly? Since we began communicating directly with the vendor things have been much better rather than having to go through the estate agent all the time, in fact we have been speaking to her every couple of days and she has popped round to see if she can help etc...

Willow - our buyers have our phone number (I gave it to them) but we don't have theirs. I'm actually pretty annoyed they haven't rung us, I thought they might have by now. Considering all the problems have come from them and their buyer The good thing is we have a back up plan if this chain all falls apart. I hope your exchange goes through smoothly!

YY Lyra, I think we will do that, maybe we should delay our exchange for a few weeks, see how the others like it! Would give us a chance to let the people who want to buy ours make sure their buyer is in a secure position. Not sure I could be that deceitful though. I'm waiting for dh to get home now to see what he thinks. If these new buyers had offered only a few thousand more I wouldn't have given it a seconds thought but £20*,*000!! But then they might turn round and gazunder us at the last minute....damn, where is my crystal ball when I need it.

I would go to the 'new' buyers and find out how secure their buyers are - you don't want to jump ship and then find they can't get finance and you lose your purchase. (are you buying on or just selling yours? )

If I was happy that the buyers' buyer were secure, I would go back to my buyers and give them a deadline by which they have to exchange or you pull out.

If your buyers don't perform, go back to the new buyers but with a strict deadline to complete. I've exchanged within a week on a multi million pound central london property (for clients, not me!) so it can be done.

I wish this had happened to us - we had the opposite problem, with our buyers dragging their heels and then pulling out on the day of exchange, and we lost our purchase, even though we offered to go ahead and exchange anyway - but they didn't want a delayed completion....